Mark Twain book fair opens Friday

Published 5:13 pm, Thursday, August 28, 2014

Volunteers Sandi O'Reilly and Thom Field sort books as they and others prepare for the 54th Annual Mark Twain Library Book Fair, at the Redding Community Center in Redding, Conn. Aug. 28, 2014. The fair opens Friday morning, and continues from 9am through 4pm each day until Monday. less

Volunteers Sandi O'Reilly and Thom Field sort books as they and others prepare for the 54th Annual Mark Twain Library Book Fair, at the Redding Community Center in Redding, Conn. Aug. 28, 2014. The fair opens ... more

REDDING -- The 54th annual Mark Twain Library Book Fair will take place at the Redding Community Center, 37 Lonetown Road, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Monday.

An early buying fee of $15 is charged from 9 to 10 a.m. on opening day. On Labor Day, $10 buys a box for all the books you can carry.

New this year will be the addition of a tent to house three categories -- Collectors' Corner II, Paperback Fiction and Medicine.

An enormous donation of thousands of books from a lifelong book collector has resulted in newly established categories such as Environment and Nature, Music: Opera/Jazz/Broadway Musical Scores, Native American and Western Frontier, U.S. Railroads, U.S. Civil War and tThe Holocaust.

The Collectors' Corner room will offer dozens of first editions signed by the author, an authentic first edition of D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover," a first edition of Mark Twain's "Following The Equator," and a signed first edition of Robert Frost's "You Come Too."

Vinyl records will also be for sale. Records for the fair were chosen based on three classifications: vinyls that are truly collectible, those that are of interest to hobbyist listeners of a particular genre, and those made for and distributed to a mass market.

There will be an After School Spree from 2 to 4 p.m. Friday. Library staff will be stationed in the children's room to assist in selecting age-appropriate books, from preschool to preteen. Free ice cream will be offered to those who buy books.

Chez Lenard's Sidewalk Cafe will be at the Community Center on Friday and Saturday, with Chez Lenard's gourmet variations of "le hot dog."